Saved by a Prince
by KaryuuNoNatsu
Summary: Just a small story I wrote. First fanfiction so it's not the best. What happens when the new born Zelda has a curse placed upon her so not a single hair grows on her head. She is granted a wish, however it backfires. Who can help her?


When the Princess Zelda was born, her mother, the queen, wished to have a christening party, but the king put his foot down and said he would not have it. "I've seen too much trouble come of christening parties," said he. "However carefully you keep your visiting-book, some fairy is sure to get left out, and you know what that leads to. We'll have no nonsense about it. We won't ask a single fairy, then none of them can be offended." "Unless they all are," said the queen.

And that was exactly what happened. When the king and the queen and the baby got back from the christening the great throne room was crammed with fairies, of all ages and of all degrees of beauty and ugliness - good fairies and bad fairies, flower fairies and moon fairies, fairies like spiders and fairies like butterflies - and as the queen opened the door they all cried, with one voice, "Why didn't you ask me to your christening party?" "I'm very sorry," said the poor queen, but Twinrova pushed forward and said, "Hold your tongue," most rudely. Twinrova is the oldest, as well as the most wicked, of the fairies. "Don't begin to make excuses," she said, shaking her finger at the queen. "You know well enough what happens if a fairy is left out of a christening party. We are all going to give our christening presents now. As the fairy of the highest social position, I shall begion. The princess shall be bald."

The queen nearly fainted as Twinrova smiled and drew back. But the king stepped forward too. "No you don't!" said he. "How can you be so unfairylike? Have none of you been to school? Have none of you studied the history of your own race?" "How dare you?" cried a fairy in a bonnet. "It is my turn, and i sya the princess shall be-" The king actually put his hand over her mouth. "Look here," he said, "I won't have it. A fairy who breaks the traditions of fairy history goes out - you know she does - like the flame of a candle. And all traditon shows that only one bad fairy is ever forgotten at a christening party and the good ones are always invited; so either this is not a christening party, or else you were all invited except one, and by her own showing, that is Twinrova. Try it, if you don't believe me. Give your nasty gifts to my innocent child - but as sure as you do, out you go, like a candle flame. Now, then, will you risk it?"No one answeared, but one by one all the fairies said goodbye and thanked the queen for the delightful afternoon they had spent with her.

When the very last fairy was gone the queen ran to look at the baby. She tore off its lace cap and burst into tears. For all the baby's downy golden hair came off with the cap, and the Princess was as bald as an egg. "Don't cry, my love," said the king. "I have a wish lying by, which my fairy godmother gave me for a wedding present, but since then I've had nothing to wish for!" "Thank you, dear," said the queen, smiling through her tears. "I'll keep the wish till the baby grows up, " the king went on. "And then I'll give it to her and if she likes to wish for hair she can." "Oh, won't you wish for it now?" said the queen. "No, dearest. She may want something else more when she grows up. And besides, her hair may grow by itself."

But it never did. Princess Zelda grew up as beautiful as the sun and as good as gold, but never a hair grew on that little head of hers. The queen sewed her little caps of white silk, and the princess's pink and white face looked out of these like a flower peeping out of its bud. And every day as she grew older she grew dearer, and as she grew dearer she grew better, and as she grew more good she grew more beautiful. Now, when she was grown up the queen said to the king: "My love, our dear daughter is old enough to know what she wants. Let her have the wish." So the king unlocked his gold safe with the seven diamond-handled keys that hung at his girdle, and took out the wish and gave it to his daughter. Then the queen said: "Dearest, for my sake, wish what i tell you." "Why, of course I will," said Zelda. The queen whispered in her ear, and Zelda nodded. Then she said, aloud: "I wish I had golden hair a yard long, and that it would grow an inch every day, and grow twice as fast every time it was cut, and-" "Stop," cried the king.

The next moment the princess stood smiling at him through a shower of golden hair. "Oh, how lovely," said the queen. "What a pity you interrupted her, dear. What's the matter?" "You'll know soon enough," said the king. "Come, let's be happy while we may. Give me a kiss, little Zelda, and then go to the nurse and ask her to teach you how to comb your hair." "I know," said Zelda, "I've often combed mother's." "Your mother has beautiful hair," said the king. "but I fancy you will find your own less easy to manage."

And, indeed, it was so. The princess's hair began by being a yard long, and it grew an inch every night. If you know anything at all about the simplest sums you will see that in about five weeks her hair was about two yards long. This is a very inconvenient length. It trails on the floor and sweeps up all the dust. And the princess's hair was growing an inch every night. When it was three yards long the princess could not bear it any longer - it was so heavy and so hot - so she cut it all off, and then for a few hours she was comfortable. But the hair went on growing, and now it grew twice as fast as before, so that in thirty-six days it was as long as ever. The poor princess cried with tiredness. When she couldn't bear it anymore she cut her hair and was comfortable for a very little time. For the hair now grew four times as fast as at first, and in eighteen days it was as long as before, and ahe had to have it cut and so on, growing twice as fast after each cutting, till the princess would go to bed at night with her hair clipped short, and wake up in the morning with yards and yards and yards of golden hair flowing all about the room, so that she could not move without pulling her own hair, and the nurse had to come and cut the hair off before she could get out of bed.

"I wish I was bald again," sighed poor Zelda. And still the hair grew and grew. Then the king said : "I shall write to my fairy godmother and see if something cannot be done." So he wrote and sent the letter by a loftwing, and by return of bird came this answer: _'Why not advertise for a prince? Offer the usual reward.'_ So the king sent out his heralds all over the world to proclaim that any respectable prince with proper references should marry the Princess Zelda if he could stop her hair growing. Then from far and near came trains of princes anxious to try their luck, and they brought all sorts of nasty things with them in bottles and round wooden boxes. The princess tried all the remedies, but she did not like any of then, and she did not like any of the princes, so in her heart she was rather glad that none of them made the least difference to her hair.

The princess had to sleep in the great throne room now, because no other room was big enough to hold her and her hair. When she woke in the morning the long high room would be quite full of her golden hair, packed tight and thick like wool in a barn. And every night when she had had the hair cut close to her head she would sit in her green silk gown by the window and cry, and kiss the little white caps she used to wear, and wish herself bald again. It was as she sat crying there on Midsummer Eve that she first saw Prince Link. He was walking in the garden in the moonlight, and he looked up and she looked down, and for the first time Zelda, looking on a prince, wished that he might have the power to stop her hair from growing. As for the prince, he wished many things, and the first was granted him. For he said, "You are Zelda?" "And you are Link?" "There are many roses round your window," said he to her, "and none down here." She threw him one of three white roses she held in her hand. Then he said: "If I can do what your father asks, will you marry me?"

"My father has promised that I shall," said Zelda, playing with the white roses in her hand. "Dear princess," said he, "your father's promise is nothing to me. I want yours. Will you give it to me?" "Yes," said she, and gave him the second rose. "I want your hand." "Yes," she said. "And your heart with it." "Yes," said the princess, and gave him the third rose. "Then," said he, "stay by your window and I will stay down here in the garden and watch. And when your hair has grown to the filling of your room call to me, and then do as I tell you." "I will," said the princess.

So at dewy sunrise the prince, lying on the turf beside the sundial, heard her voice. "Link! Link! My hair has grown so long that it is pushing me out of the window." "Get out on to the windowsill," said he, "and twist your hair three times round the great iron hook that is there." And she did. Then the prince climbed up the rose bush with his naked sword in his teeth, and he took the princess's hair in his hand about a yard from her head and said: "Jump!" The princess jumped, and screamed, for there she was hanging from the hook by a yard and a half of her bright hair. The prince tightened his grasp of the hair and drew his sword across it.

Then he let her down gently by her hair till her feet were on the grass, and jumped down after her. They stayed talking in the garden till all the shadows had crept under their proper trees and the sundial said it was breakfast time. Then they went in to breakfst, and all the court crowded round to wonder and admire. For the princess's hair had not grown. "How did you do it?" asked the king, shaking Link warmly by the hand. "The simplest thing in the world," said Link, modestly. "You have always cut the hair off of the princess. I just cut the princess off the hair." "You are a young man of sound judgment," said the king, embracing him. The princess kissed her prince a hundred times, and the very next day they were married. Everybody remarked on the beauty of the bride, and it was noticed that her hair was quite short - only five feet and a quarter inches long - just down to her pretty ankles.


End file.
